Category: Health

Monday, September 15, 1913:For one thing I’ve had a splitting headache this afternoon and it still continues.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Ouch. . . headaches are no fun! I wonder what caused Grandma’s headache.

Here is what a hundred-year-old book said about headaches causes:

Headache is a symptom rather than a disease, but there is no symptom which requires more careful investigation of its cause than that of headache. It occurs at all ages, but is most common from ten to twenty-five years and from thirty-five to forty-five years. Women suffer from headache more than men, in the proportion of about three to one. Headaches are most common in the spring and fall of the year and in the temperate climates.

Causes of headache—These may be classified into those in which the blood is at fault; reflex causes; various nervous disorders; and organic diseases.

The blood may be impoverished, as in the case of anemia, where there is a deficiency in hemoglobin; but by far the most frequent cause of headache is where the blood is disordered, as in gout, rheumatism, kidney diseases, diabetes, and the infectious fevers and malaria.

Among the more common reflex causes are eye-strain, especially errors of refraction; disorders of digestion, particularly constipation; and pelvic disorders, as in inflammation of the pelvic viscera.

Functional diseases of the nervous system causing headache are overwork, neurasthenia, hysteria, epilepsy, and neuritis.

Among the most common of the organic diseases is arteriosclerosis; other diseases are meningitis and brain tumors.

Saturday, September 13, 1913:This day is a good bit like some other days.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’m going to share some fun drawings of the wrong and right ways to care for a baby that appeared in the October, 1913 issue of Ladies Home Journal.

Tuesday, September 2, 1913: Papa was very sick today. He fainted this morning. I was scart quite a bit for I thought he was worse than what he really was.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Whew, what happened? I’d be “scart”, too.

What did the family do? Did they pull out a book that included information on home health care –perhaps the Compendium of Every Day Wants—to figure out how to treat him?

This is what the Compendium had to say:

FAINTING

This is caused by an interruption of the supply of blood to the brain. Lay the person down at once so that the head is lower than the body. Sprinkle the face with cold water and hold ammonia or smelling salts to the nose. If the person has any tight clothing, loosen such garments. Open the window to admit plenty of fresh air; apply hot bricks to the feet and avoid all noise and excitement. The person will revive without any attention in many cases, but in severe cases, a mustard paste may be placed over the heart; and if breathing stops, artificial respiration should be begun.

Did you ever wonder if people died from different causes a hundred years ago than what they do today? Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’ll share an interesting article I found in the June 16, 1913 issue of the Milton Evening Standard.

Births Exceed Deaths in State During March

Births in Pennsylvania during March numbers 18,945, but to offset this increase in population the deaths numbered 11,000, the ratio of deaths to births being higher than the average.

Pneumonia, which always exacts heavy toll during the winter, caused 1,721 deaths in March. The deaths were distributed among the various diseases and other causes about as usual.

Following are the figures compiled by the bureau of vital statistics of the state department of health:

Sunday, December 15, 1912: Went to Sunday School this afternoon. Jimmie also has the pink eye and says I gave it to him. He was real mad for a time.

Recent photo of the Muffly’s house.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Poor Jimmie—pink eye is no fun.

Of course, Grandma’s seven-year-old brother is right—he probably caught the pink eye from Grandma . She wrote that she had pink eye on December 10—and that it was getting better on December 12.

Did the Muffly’s try to prevent the spread of pink eye?

Here’s what I found in a hundred-year-old book called Personal Hygiene and Physical Training for Women about how to avoid infections (though it focuses on influenza rather than pink eye).

We have already seen that bacilli are not only the cause of acute infections, but also of chronic bronchitis, and that this was especially true of the bacillus of influenza and the pneumococcus of pneumonia.

It is well know that influenza is an infectious disease, which rapidly spreads through the family and the community., but it is not so well-known that the so-called “common colds,” ordinary sore throat, and tonsillitis are also highly contagious. The infection is carried from one person to another by direct contagion; the air is being constantly sprayed with the germs of disease in talking, laughing, sneezing, and coughing. In coughing and sneezing it is not sufficient to hold the hand before the moth—a handkerchief must be used for this purpose.

As many ailments as the Muffly’s have had, I hope that they had a well-stock medicine cabinet.

I found a hundred –year-old list of what should be in a family medicine cabinet (or as they called them back then “medicine closet.”) The list was in the appendix of a book called The Care of the Baby.

List of Articles for Medicine Closet

Those liquids marked with an * are for external use or are dangerous. They should be in poison bottles.

Glass graduate marked with fluidrachms and fluid-ounces

Minium glass

Accurate dropper

Hard-rubber syringe

Small druggist’s hand scales for weighing medicines

Camel’s-hair brushes

Small straight dressing forceps

A pair of scissors

Absorbent cotton

Several one-inch and two-inch roller bandages, one to three yards long

Patent lint

Old linen

A spool of rubber adhesive plaster

Court plaster

Paraffin paper or oil silk

*Alcohol

Whiskey

Olive Oil

Ammonia-water

*Turpentine

Glycerin

Distilled fluid extract of hamamelis (witch-hazel) for bruises

*Soap liniment for sprains

*Tincture of iodine

*Solution of boric acid for washing cuts

*Solution permanganate of potash, 4 grains to the dram

Flaxseed meal

Mustard

Magnesia

Vaseline

Castor oil

Zinc ointment

Soda-mint

Baking soda

Sweet spirit of nitre

Aromatic spirits of ammonia

Bromide of potash in 2o-grain powders to be divided according to the age

*Tincture of digitalis

Syrup of ipecacuauha

Tannic acid for use in poisoning

Epsom salts for poisoning

Vinegar for poisoning

Jeaunel’s antidote for poisoning

What the heck are most of these items? . . and how do you use them to treat illnesses and wounds?